The man froze for a moment, took the item, and stood there staring at Ning Yi'an.
"Please pay," Ning Yi'an snapped out of her pleasant daydream, realizing she had accidentally made a mistake.
The man suddenly grinned, his smile stretching ear to ear.
"Meat..." He abruptly reached out and grabbed Ning Yi'an's arm.
Ning Yi'an was terrified. She now understood her mistake—the rulebook clearly stated, "Do not hand goods to customers before payment." But her instincts had momentarily overridden her memory of the rule.
"Help, save me!" Ning Yi'an turned to look at the senior employee, who cursed under his breath as he approached.
"Rule-breakers deserve death." Despite his grumbling, he pulled out a knife and slashed down, severing the customer's hand. The detached hand still clung tightly to Ning Yi'an's arm, leaving her face ghostly pale.
"Pay up..." Before the senior employee could finish, the door in front of them slammed shut with a loud "Bang!"
Panicked, he raised the knife and began knocking, then pounding on the door. Yet, the flimsy wooden door might as well have been forged from eternal ice—it remained completely unharmed.
Ning Yi'an stood dumbfounded, watching everything unfold. The senior employee suddenly stopped and glanced back at her, his eyes filled with resentment.
According to the boss's rules, failing to collect payment meant a wage deduction! A wage deduction!
The other players had encountered minor issues too, but they had mostly completed their tasks. The only ones who failed were Ning Yi'an and another player from the K Kingdom—a brainless black man named Hanks. The customer he served was so horrifying that Hanks simply threw the goods in their face, naturally receiving no payment. The customer even threatened to file a complaint.
In the K Kingdom's livestream, domestic viewers fell silent while international audiences burst into laughter.
"Look at our country's participants—they follow the rules without question. Now look at the K Kingdom."
"Truly the self-proclaimed world's greatest nation, even their mistakes are uniquely creative."
"That woman still thinks she can cozy up to Fang Zhiyi, huh?"
"Hahaha, hopeless. Absolutely hopeless."
The K Kingdom's higher-ups were livid. Despite paying protection fees and putting on a polite front, these two had still messed up! They even suspected Fang Zhiyi had conspired with the supernatural entities to set them up.
Fortunately, when Fang Zhiyi learned of the incident that evening, he didn’t press the matter. He simply informed the two supernatural couriers assigned to train the newcomers that the losses would be deducted from the two interns' wages.
"But boss, don’t they have no wages?" the store manager asked.
Fang Zhiyi shot him a sidelong glance. "So what if they don’t? Can’t they work extra to make up for it?"
"Oh~!" The supernatural employees had an epiphany.
And so, in the days that followed, Ning Yi'an and the dim-witted Hanks endured far more torment than the others. Players from other kingdoms, once they grasped the rules, resigned themselves to being workhorses. Compared to losing their lives, being exploited wasn’t so bad—some had been exploited even before being chosen for this game. The only difference was the location.
Ning Yi'an and Hanks, however, were paired together. They were assigned the longest delivery routes—any distance deemed too far by others fell to them. And due to their poor performance, their rations were reduced. While other players occasionally enjoyed instant noodles with meat, the two were stuck with plain boiled noodles.
Finally, Hanks snapped. He stood up abruptly and flipped the small table in front of him. "NO! I am a noble lord! How dare you treat me like this? Aren’t you afraid of offending the K Kingdom?" Before becoming a player, he had been a lowly thug who lucked his way through one game. The K Kingdom then "protected" him—meaning they provided shelter, food, and women. For a man who thought only with his lower half, this was paradise. The K Kingdom officials found him easy to maintain, so they kept him around.
But today, he couldn’t take it anymore. How dare these people treat him like this? The aroma of instant noodles from others' meals pushed him over the edge. He lunged to snatch a bowl.
Cheng Xiang instinctively glanced at Fang Zhiyi, who was reviewing accounts with the store manager. Fang Zhiyi merely narrowed his eyes at Hanks before resuming his conversation.
Cheng Xiang understood—he had fully grasped Fang Zhiyi’s character by now.
So he hugged his noodles and stepped aside.
Hanks tussled with the others, knocking over several bowls before finally seizing one. He didn’t notice the owner was from the X Kingdom, a nation long at odds with the K Kingdom. The moment he looked up, a fist the size of a sandbag smashed into his face.
"Damn it! You dare steal from me? Are the rest of you dead? Just letting this trash run wild?"
Once someone struck the first blow, others joined in. These players, though slightly better off than the K Kingdom duo, had been simmering with resentment from endless drudgery. And now a black brute had the audacity to intimidate them? Knowing billions were watching, some cursed and dove into the fray.
Ning Yi'an was petrified. She rushed toward Fang Zhiyi.
"Zhiyi, do something! Hanks is going to get beaten to death!" She stared at Fang Zhiyi, who was flipping through the ledger, her mind racing with calculations.
"Mm." Fang Zhiyi didn’t even look up. His indifference reassured the other players, who focused wholeheartedly on pummeling Hanks. This guy had always lorded his K Kingdom status over them, hurling insults and even harassing female players in private.
"Protest! The Xia Kingdom isn’t instructing Fang Zhiyi to stop them?"
"Protest my ass."
"You paid protection fees for Fang Zhiyi to shield you from supernatural threats, not to mediate player brawls."
"Oh? Fair point."
"Damn, I think we just found a loophole."
"Shh."
Ning Yi'an anxiously watched as Hanks disappeared under the mob, then turned back to Fang Zhiyi. "Zhiyi..."
Before she could speak, Fang Zhiyi abruptly closed the ledger and looked over. "Alright, that’s enough." He wouldn’t let Hanks die—at least not here.
The enraged players didn’t hear him, but the supernatural staff did. They rushed forward, slapping players aside one by one to break up the fight.
Fang Zhiyi walked over to Hanks, who was barely conscious. The man was surprisingly tough—beaten to a pulp yet still hanging on.
"Not dead yet?"
Hanks' eyes were slits as he weakly nodded, mumbling incoherently.
"Old Crook!" A supernatural employee with a crooked neck scurried over. "Boss."
"Keep an eye on him this afternoon. If he’s alive, he works." With that, Fang Zhiyi turned and left.
The room fell silent.
Cheng Xiang could already imagine the flood of online comments—Fang Zhiyi’s reputation would now include "tyrannical capitalist."
u serious?" Chen Feng watched helplessly as his painstakingly trained disciple, fresh off a championship victory, publicly abandoned him. "You had your chance, but you didn’t appreciate it. Now, face the consequences of your choice!" Chen Feng possessed the "Master System," a treasure trove of supreme martial arts techniques, capable of molding ordinary individuals into peerless prodigies. "Legs like yours? A shame not to train in the Crippling Kick." "Ever heard of a palm strike that descends from the heavens?" "Auntie! I see extraordinary bone structure in you—a martial arts prodigy, one in ten thousand." The once-defiant senior disciple, now watching her juniors rise to fame one after another, dominating the internet, was consumed by endless regret.
villain is the number one simp for the book's leading female protagonist, Shen Wan'er. As expected, he later becomes a tool for the main character to show off and slap faces, ultimately meeting a tragic end with his family ruined and his life in shambles. Fortunately, he awakens the [Universal Pure Love System], which allows him to earn points by performing acts of pure love. To change his fate, Gu Yan makes a decisive choice to seek warmth and companionship with the book's biggest villain—Cold Qingqiu. ........... My name is Leng Qingqiu. To find the murderer who killed my parents years ago, I deliberately blinded myself so that everyone would lower their guard around me. Just as I was secretly accumulating power and capital according to my initial plan, a man walked into my world. "Lengleng, Qingqing, Qiuqiu, which nickname do you prefer?" I don't like any of them. You'd better leave quickly! "Why aren't you saying anything? How about I call you my baby wife?" Leng Qingqiu thinks to herself, this man is truly annoying! (Stubborn pure love warrior + single female lead + true pure love + 1v1)
u Chenyuan transmigrated into a female-oriented novel about a real and fake heiress, becoming the CEO elder brother of both. Unfortunately, the entire Lu family—including himself, the CEO—were mere cannon fodder in the story. Determined to save himself, Lu Chenyuan took action. The spoiled, attention-seeking fake heiress? Thrown into the harsh realities of the working class to learn humility. The love-struck real heiress? Pushed toward academic excellence, so lofty goals would blind her to trivial romances. As for the betrayed, vengeful arranged marriage wife… the plot hadn’t even begun yet. There was still time—if he couldn’t handle her, he could at least avoid her. "CEO Lu, are you avoiding me?" Mo Qingli fixed her gaze on Lu Chenyuan. For the first time, the shrewd and calculating Lu Chenyuan felt a flicker of unease.
reezy rom-com) Good news: Jiang Liu is quite the ladies' man. Bad news: He’s lost his memory. Lying in a hospital bed, Jiang Liu listens to a parade of goddesses spouting "absurd claims," feeling like the world is one giant game of Werewolf. "Jiang Liu, I’m your first love." "Jiang Liu, you’re my boyfriend—she’s your ex." "Jiang Liu, we’re close friends who’ve shared a bed, remember?" "Jiang Liu, I want to have your baby." The now-lucid Jiang Liu is convinced this must be some elaborate scam... until someone drops the bombshell: "The day before you lost your memory, you confessed your feelings—and got into a relationship." Jiang Liu is utterly baffled. So... who the hell is his actual girlfriend?! ... Before recovering his memories, Jiang Liu must navigate this minefield of lies and sincerity, fighting to protect himself from these women’s schemes. But things spiral even further out of control as more people show up at his doorstep—each with increasingly unhinged antics. On the bright side, the memories he lost due to overwhelming trauma seem to be resurfacing. Great news, right? So why are they all panicking now?
